


The Void Bird

by alcohollo



Category: Original Work
Genre: Ambiguity, F/F, Gen, Lesbian, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 09:27:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17826149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alcohollo/pseuds/alcohollo
Summary: A woman wakes from a one night stand and contemplates what she wants to do with her life.





	The Void Bird

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my tumblr, sleepwithabaseballbat, where I typically make writing prompts.

I woke up from a dreamless sleep, turning to face the body next to me. I never slept well when I was in bed with someone else, even when such erotic excursions like the one last night left me exhausted, I found myself unable to properly lose myself to dreaming. How would I ever live with a spouse and achieve a good night’s sleep? Perhaps I will never marry, or perhaps we’ll just have to sleep in separate beds.

I sat up, kissing the woman’s naked shoulder, and pulled her closer to me. She turned to me, moaning softly. She whispered good morning to me in her native language that I barely spoke, and I responded in that same language. She laid her head on my chest and curl into my body, desiring to rest for just a few more minutes. I held her and stroked her back, running my fingers along the burned flesh. I asked her about it last night while she was undressing in front of me. She told me about how radicals burned her house down when she was a child, how they executed her parents, kidnapped her older sister, and by some extremely odd means, she ended up in the foster care system. “That’s horrible,” I told her.

“It happens,” she said. And then we had sex.

I met her at a bar with a name I now couldn’t remember. All I remember is my friend telling me it was for women with “particular tastes”. In other words, for lesbians. The bar changed locations about every month to avoid acts of terror that weren’t uncommon in a country like this. Though homosexuality wasn’t outlawed, it was still incredibly taboo, and you had to be careful. I thanked God I lived in a country where I didn’t have to hide. Well, where I didn’t always have to hide. When I was younger, things were a bit different, but ever since marriage for people like me was legalized, it’s gotten better.

I thought about how the girl in my arms came to realize she liked girls. I didn’t ask her about it the night before, too busy talking about what I was studying, why I was here to study it, me, me, me, and not enough her. So when did she know? How did she know? How’d she find that bar? How does one find their true self in a place like this? These were all things I wanted to ask her right then and there, but the part of me that was swooning over how beautiful she looked sleeping on chest, a hand covering my breast, and wanted to stay like this forever was stronger.

Maybe I should take her with me when I leave. She has no family hear, no real commitments. Besides, it’s dangerous for her here. What if the radicals decided to come back for her? What if the bar get’s destroyed and she’s inside? 

I pictured taking her back with me. I would marry her, graduate, write my book, go on tour, adopt two kids, win a Nobel, be on the cover of Time, write a memoir, retire, die, and all with her by my side. I think I could for that long without a good night’s sleep. Yes, I think I will do that, but the first priority is getting her to come with me.

When she wakes up, I’ll ask if she wants to join me for coffee. Then we’ll go for a walk on the beach. We’ll have lunch with my friends from the university. I’ll take her on a tour of my campus. I’ll ask to see where she lives, and in her apartment, we’ll have amazing sex, better than the night before. We’ll have dinner, and I’ll ask to see her again. For the rest of that week, we we’ll have coffee and dinner together every morning and night, until by the end, I’ll ask her to come back with me. Somewhere along the way, I’ll find out more about her.

She shifted, making me think she was going to wake up, but she was only making herself more comfortable. That was perfectly fine, I could wait. I stared at her face, brushing her hair from her forehead. There was a small mole on the corner of her eyebrow that I hadn’t noticed before. Seeing it made my heart skip a beat, and I wondered if she could hear it. If she could hear me falling deeper and deeper in love.

I went back to staring across the room, this time, being more aware of my surroundings. Light bled through the open windows, casting brilliant rays of light in sharp contrast to the otherwise dark room. A light breeze made the curtains dance to the rhythm of the wind. I could hear people talking downstairs along with the pedestrians outside, but they were so far gone from me, I couldn’t tell which was which. Combine all this with the feeling of the woman’s bare skin on mine and the lovely eucalyptus smell of her hair–I must ask what kind of shampoo she uses–and I knew that this moment was perfect. If I had to stay like this forever, drop out of university, disappoint my parents and waste their money, never to follow my plans, I think I’d be content. I really do. 

Suddenly, a thought came to me: this would a perfect photograph. I was by no means a photographer, never had the eye, but in that moment, I had the same instinct as a photographer to get a perfect shot, capture the moment and never let it go. I’d put my camera on my left if I was facing the bed in the back corner. I’d angle it so that I could get both the window to the left of the bed and the curtained one at the opposite end that I was staring out of now. I would find just the right moment where the curtain was waving just so much as to not render the rays of light hitting the ground, and then I’d snap. I–the subject–would be looking ahead and out the window while holding my resting lover. The colors would be muted, the image blown up, and displayed in a gallery, title something like “The Eucalyptus Lovers”. Some weirdo in glasses who’s been divorced five times will see it, see our naked breasts and say that the picture “speaks to him”, then spend enough money on it to pay off my student loans.

I was tempted to get up and get my phone, set a timer on it, and make this vision happen, but that would mean I would have disturb the woman, and that’s the last thing I wanted to do. So I filed the image in my head, in a place where I’d never forget it. Along with it, the perfection of the moment, and the beauty of its impermanence.

Right on time, the woman shifted, this time to move off of me. She laid on her side still facing me, eyes fluttering open to look up at me, smiling. She giggled, and I swear, it was the best sound I’ve ever heard. I smiled back at her and held her gaze. I did this for long enough that I started to yearn for her touch again, and I knew that if I pulled her back, we would never leave that bed. So I got up and walked towards the window across the room, feeling her eyes on me as I did. I grabbed the blouse I had worn the night before and threw on so it covered my shoulders and breasts. I put my hands on the sill and leaned forward slightly, the wind gently hitting my face, along with it, a waft of sewage and cigarette smoke. The smell didn’t sting my nose like it usually did, maybe I was just now starting to grow accustomed to it, or maybe it was a special morning.

I didn’t look down, content with keeping my eyes on the clear sky, no clouds in sight. I realized this moment would also make a nice photograph, not as good as “The Eucalyptus Lovers”, but would still be interesting. Put the camera on the outside of the room, giving a peak through the window. I would take up the majority of the frame, while the woman in my bed was looking at me, her figure slightly out of focus. I don’t know what that photo would be called, maybe the same thing. Maybe it could be collection. God, I might as well give up this whole academia dream and become a photographer.

A flock of birds made their way across the sky in a V-shape. Behind them was a larger bird, clearly not part of the flock. The bird flapped it’s wings less than the ones in front of it, soaring gracefully, but ominously. I studied it more. It was black. Not black because of it’s silhouette, but black because of it’s true color. It’s color was not just a simple black found on ravens or crows, but a true darkness. Looking at it’s wings, it’s body, I saw into the void. The longer I stared, the more I was filled with dread, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away. In those wings, I saw a truth that I had never wanted to face, never wanted to put a name to, but always knew it was there. It was familiar, but not at all comforting, like a secret surfacing. My body tensed. I heard the woman in my bed ask me if everything was alright, but her voice was coming from somewhere else, only reaching my ears and no farther. 

From that same place, I could hear muffled shouting, thumping noises, a scream, and then the loudest bang in the world. So loud, I felt it behind me, scorching hot, catching my blouse on fire. It launched me from the window, sending me flying through the air. Before I hit the ground, I realized that I was soaring, and I wondered if I looked all that different from the void bird I was just examining.

**Author's Note:**

> First time posting! I'd really like some feedback on what I did well and what I can work on for the next time. Thanks for reading!


End file.
